I finally got around to editing a version good enough to post. This is an interview I did with Mark Andrews and Ted Mathot in the Lucky 7 lounge at Pixar. Mark was the head of Story on the Incredibles and Ratatouille and Ted is a veteran story artist who will be working with Brad on his next project. I hope you enjoy the Podcast. Expect a version with chapters and images on iTunes soon. I wanted to get this one up ASAP. The audio quality could be better, and it will be with the next Spline Cast! I just finished one with Pete Doctor. Expect that one in the next few weeks.

Hope you enjoy the Spline Cast.. Please send your feedback

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Christopher Soto

Wonderful, can’t wait for Pete Doctor.

August 1, 2007 @ 10:34 pm

pink hippo

I was so desperately looking for these each day, thanks a ton

Vin

August 1, 2007 @ 11:00 pm

Lars

I was waiting for this one as well nice to be able to listen to it. Btw a small question. Mark talks about this animation student JJ Quintal in regard to good framing, pacing and storyboarding. I think i understood it wrong because i should have found it on Youtube. Anyways if you could post a link or the name to the youtube video that Mark Andrews mentioned i would be a happy man. Keep posting them nice interviews.

August 2, 2007 @ 1:19 am

Bobby Beck

Thanks guys! These are amazing. Big fan of the Spline Doctors! Keep it goin.

August 2, 2007 @ 8:49 am

Sant Arellano

Lars

I also tried various names until JG Quintel appeared. His film is called “2 in the AM PM”

Spline Doctors!! Thanks so much for brigning Ted and Mark to talk about story. One of the things that Mark mentioned that caught my attention was when he was talking about boarding the scene when Bob and Frozone are talking in the car and it just wasn’t playing, until somebody suggested to throw in a police radio.

I think that shows that sometimes, it’s not about taking off ideas and make it look less complicated, but apporting ideas that could make it play.

Sometimes I’ve feel people hold back from thinking complicated ideas or characters instead of work ing their way to make them play. And thats the real challenge!!!

Thanks!!

August 2, 2007 @ 10:08 am

Robert

I knew the SplineDoctors blog was my homepage for a reason! Brilliant interview, yet again. Don’t worry about sound issues. I heard everything just fine, and it was all gold. I loved hearing from story guys this time – proves what I love about the medium is that no matter what aspect of animation you’re focusing on (story, layout, animation, etc), it’s all connected and we can all learn from each other. I’m an animation student, but I picked up several great new ideas on how to approach my own work from these 2 great story artists.

Thanks again, Andrew!

August 2, 2007 @ 1:36 pm

Dave

Great interview guys! Thanks so much for sharing

August 3, 2007 @ 12:14 am

Fränk Spalteholz

Yippie it is there! Thank you guys!

Cheers Frank

August 3, 2007 @ 4:02 am

BrandonBeckstead

Fantastic stuff, please keep these coming! Thanks to all involved for doing this!

August 3, 2007 @ 9:23 am

Brad

Whhooo!!Great interview!Thank you, thank you!

August 4, 2007 @ 3:39 pm

Bobby Pontillas

AWE. SOME!

great way to kick off the week!

August 6, 2007 @ 10:51 am

Larry Phillips

Fantastic! These informal behind-the-scenes un-edited un-censored un-slicked-out interviews beat the hell out of any commercial or DVD specials type production. You are doing a good thing for many folks here. Keep up the great work and thanks a million!

August 6, 2007 @ 1:11 pm

Lars

Hey thanx Sant Arellano! The cartoon is weird btw. More weird is that the staging at the beginning is amazing and then the staging gets normal. Btw this cartoon was made so immensely lazy the drawing on it is so crappy sometimes.

Btw thanx for it… it did make me laugh though.

Grtz Lars

August 6, 2007 @ 3:19 pm

Randeep Katari

This is one of the best things ever. Thank you. I can’t wait for Mr. Docter’s interview.-R.

August 7, 2007 @ 8:08 am

Jett

Great ‘cast. My only quibble is even with the sound turned all the way up it’s really hard to hear.

August 7, 2007 @ 12:37 pm

Carlos

I just listened to the cast. I loved it. Dude was right. So many processes of one art inform another and I can find a lot of this applies to animation. Thanks for doing this Andrew. I’ll be looking forward to the next few.

August 7, 2007 @ 4:41 pm

Kam Steele

It was awesome! I’ve always enjoyed Spline Casts (I have all of them on my iPod.) and they’re always inspiring to listen to. To come up with an odd analogy, Spline Casts are like expresso, they’re a shot of inspiration with every listen. (AKA: “Inspresso!” Yeah… I’ve successfully managed to butcher the English language again only without the use of French! Now lets see how long it’ll take the Oxford dictionary police to find me and probably arrest me for inventing silly words…. again. XD ) Uh… here’s a visual version of that odd early-morning analogy in a 10 minute sketch: http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z84/KamSteele/Inspresso.png

Anyways, long and short of it – keep it up! I like hearing these things!

~Kamui.EXE/Kam Steele

August 8, 2007 @ 7:23 am

Kam Steele

Marcus

This was an awesome interview.

Could the spline doctors post up some good learning materials that teach about storyboarding and “the language of film”? I’m not in film/art/animation school, but would really love to learn more about the topics talked about in this interview.

Or maybe someplace to hear professionals critique movies from a film making standpoint?

Thanks!~Marcus

August 8, 2007 @ 8:31 am

TSM

I strongly encourage anyone interested in storyboarding (or any kind of visual storytelling for that matter) to pick up a copy of The Visual Story by Bruce Block.

Glad to hear you all are enjoying the cast and thanks Andrew for asking me to be a part of it!

Ted

August 8, 2007 @ 9:39 am

OV!

this was a nice interview from 2 of my fav artists/storyartists in the biz.

thanks>oVi

August 8, 2007 @ 12:48 pm

Paul Naas

Best Splinecast yet, and I’m only about halfway through! Thanks guys, and keep ‘em comin’!

August 9, 2007 @ 12:32 pm

Mauricio

Great questions and great answers! I walked away from it knowing I’d be coming back regularly. It was LOADED with lots of very practical information. So much so, I’m sure I’ll be listening to it again, and again… (Took many notes)

I’d love to hear some of those things Teddy Newton came up with during gag sessions. Or just to watch these minds creating, bouncing off each other, ideas taking new forms, etc…

I love this stuff, thanks for the peek behind the curtain.

Mauricio

P.S. 100 boards!? I’d better get back to my drawing desk…

August 9, 2007 @ 6:54 pm

Tony C.

My favorite Spline Cast yet!

Artists often tend to be a reserved bunch. It’s rare that you find one with a gregarious, outspoken personality like Mr. Andrews. It’s nice when someone cuts through the formalities and says what he thinks. Those individuals are my favorite to work with.

Great stuff from Mr. Mathot as well. Thank you for putting these together Andrew!

August 10, 2007 @ 6:36 pm

Olivier Ladeuix

I have been trying to find the time to write a long comment for the past few weeks but I have been just too busy so here is a short one in the meantime.

I wanted to thank Mark Andrews and Ted Mathot for this great interview and also the doctors but more specifically Andrew as he is doing an amazing work as an interviewer.

It helps to have great artists to interview but finding the right questions or interesting one is much harder and Andrew did a great job here and it is interesting to hear that Mark and Ted fully embrace the Pitch Doctor when Nate Stanton prefered the old way of pitching.

Hearing that Mark Andrew taste was more the product of japanese animation than Disney was also very refreshing and a bit unexpected.

Great stuff.

August 14, 2007 @ 6:20 pm

Mark Geyer

Simply fantastical. Thanks man!

August 14, 2007 @ 10:59 pm

k. borcz

can’t wait to check it out later!

August 16, 2007 @ 10:07 am

Doron Meir

Wonderful stuff, can’t thank you guys enough for bringing us these interviews. You always ask just the right questions, too. Looking forward to more great interviews.